Spannungen (aus-)halten. Das Subjekt materialistischer Gesellschaftstheorie
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2017.15Keywords:
New materialism, social theory, subject, Barad, Spivak, double bindAbstract
New materialist debates are raising epistemological and ethical questions. Starting from the assumption that the new materialist critique of anthropocentric premises promisingly poses destabilising challenges to social theoretical knowledge production this paper asks how Karan Barad’s Work could be read as offering important contributions in this respect. The point is not to reject social theory but, rather, to endeavour to rework it in order to hold on to its (reconfigured) emancipatory potential. In particular, the specific historical figure of the autonomous subject and its attendant subject-object-dichotomy are regarded as part of the problem and not as basis for anticipated solutions. The crux is that the critique of anthropocentrism is actually the praxis of a very specific human subject; this paradox is approached via Gayatri Spivak’s concept of the double bind in order to make it available to the process of knowledge production.References
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